Broken God (16 page)

Chapter
18.

Teaching an Oracle
takes time.

Catching the killer
of gods takes time.

Falling in love
takes time.

If there is
anything I have an abundance of, it is time.

I spend weeks with
Iris, in small towns outside of Seattle, where the population is tiny and
manageable and she can play with the threads of Sight.

I spend weeks at
the sprawling estate of new Olympus, where decadence and betrayal ran like wine
and none of us knew who was killing the gods.

I spend weeks with
Artemis and Hermes and it feels like home, like everything I had forgotten.

I spend weeks
relearning who I am and falling slowly.

That surprises me
most. Not that I fall. I expected that. But that it is slowly.

I am not a patient man
and the dance we are doing, it's slow and sweet and maddening.

She will allow me
close to her, let me hold her in the quiet hours of night and sway naked in my
shower, head tipped back and eyes closed, all of the water pouring down on her
and obscuring the shinning threads of Sight.

She loves the
shower.

But then, she’ll
push me away, turn icy cold and remote, her gaze closed off, hiding behind
oversized sweaters and cryptic words and fury.

Gods, she’s so
angry.

I forget, that this
is hard for her. That she didn’t walk into it with her eyes wide open, knowing
what it would mean to take my power, that it would drive her to the brink of
madness.

I feel guilty about
it, strangely. With my other girls, they knew and never permitted me to feel
guilty. It was almost an insult, for me to take responsibility for their
madness. It was a choice they made. I had no right to take it from them with my
guilt.

But with Iris.

Neither of us chose
this and she swings between accepting it with a smile and fury, bristling with
rage that shakes her and makes her withdraw.

It’s worse when she
does it and she’s in the grip of Sight. When she’s lost in visions and
dangerous to herself and refuses to let me near her.

It’s terrifying.

I give her a deck
of cards, and a tiny box that holds rolling papers and a small stash of weed,
and a golden lighter that she delights in playing with.

Del always spent
more time than not stoned out of her mind, and I see no reason to change that
with Iris.

Being the vessel of
a god’s power is hard enough, there is no good reason to do it clean and sober.

But it’s no good. Not really. She’s too unpredictable, too
prone to anger and sulking.

I’m desperate. Desperate enough that when I reach out, it is
to a mortal and her family, and it is not
the
worst idea
I’ve ever had.

But it is close.

I leave her in my apartment, with Del as company, and I go
see her brother.

Heath Greene still doesn’t like me.

Of course, Heath Greene doesn’t realize I am a god, and his
sister’s patron, and the reason the cells that were multiplying faster than the
medicine could work no longer are.

In short, the boy knows too little to be appreciative, and
though part of me would like to correct him about my small place in the
universe, I don’t. Iris knows exactly what I am and she’s Seen enough to know
that I am to blame for Heath’s renewed health. Heath also doesn’t also need to
know.

But as I stand next to his hospital bed, I consider that it
might buy me some good will.

And gods know I could use that.

“What did you do?” he says, not bothering to look up from
the book he’s scribbling in.

I blink and almost ask what he means, but then he looks up
at me and his gaze is sharp and assessing.

“Did you hurt her?”

 
I shake my head. “I
would sooner cut off my own hand than, then hurt her.”

His eyes go wide and considering, and then, “Dude. Anyone
tell you you’re kinda intense?”

I consider that and give him a slow smile. Intense is one
way to describe it.

“So what? She calls, but she hasn’t come by. And you wouldn’t
be here without her without a reason. What’s going on?”

“I have a twin,” I say, instead of answering his question,
and his eyes go wide. “Her name is Artie. You would like her, I think. She’s
spent the better part of our lives, making sure I don’t do something she
considers unforgivably stupid.”

“Sounds like a good sister,” Heath says, grudgingly.

“The best,” I agree. “Iris is going through something. She
might not tell you everything—I don’t think you’d believe her, if she did. But
she could use her family.”

Heath is staring at me, and his eyes are somewhere between
grateful and furious. I shrug one shoulder. “She doesn’t want to get you
involved.”

“And you decided to ignore what she wants?”

“Yes,” I say simply. “Because what she wants isn’t necessarily
good for her.”

He grunts at that, and shifts in the bed. Sits up. “Get me
some fucking clothes, then. Let’s go see my broken- winged sister.”

She is furious.

She’s sitting in the sun chair, Del curled like a liquid
black scarf around her shoulders, a cloud of smoke hanging around her head. Her
hair is braided loosely and pulled up in some complicated knot that I think, if
I tug just a little, it will all fall to pieces, and cascade all that silky
dirty gold over my hands and I could draw her head back, expose the length of
her neck and kiss her until that bristling hostility faded away.

I won’t.

Of course, I won’t.

But the urge is there, making my fingers almost twitch with
need.

She blinks at me, hazy with Sight and weed, and a slow smile
twists her lips.

And then Heath steps into the room, behind me.

Her eyes fly open, and her posture snaps straight. “Get
out,” she almost spits, and it draws him up short, like he’s not sure how to
respond. “Get
the
fuck out!”
she screams. Del hisses, and she
dumps the cat on the ground as she darts away, curling in a corner of the
apartment, her face pressed into the wall. “Out, out out out, Apollo, get him
out.”

I reach for her, and she stares at me, her eyes wild and
furious and afraid. “I can
See,
Pollo.”

The words are almost ripped from her, desperate, and I turn,
abruptly, shoving Heath into the tiny bathroom. “Stay,” I snap.

“What the fuc—“ I slam the door behind me, and then scoop
her into my arms, carrying her back to the sun chair. I tug her against me.

“You shouldn’t have brought him,” she almost whines, her
body trembling above me. “I don’t want to know.”

I squeeze my eyes closed. I forgot. Dammit all, I forgot.

There was a reason we kept Del in Delphi, in a tiny temple
with my handmaidens, separated from her family and the loves of her life before
service.

Because no one should see how their family would die.

But she saw him, when she woke with my power and it ran raw
and unfocused, and I forgot.

I fucking forgot.

“Iris,” I whisper, and press a kiss to her hair.

“I can’t tell him, can I?” she says into my chest, and I
shrug.

“He’s your brother, sweetheart. You can tell him what you
want. You can’t control what happens after you tell him. But I won’t forbid
it.”

She smirks at me, a watery, defiant thing and I roll my
eyes. “I know. I can’t forbid you to do anything.”

She kisses my cheek and swings up off my lap. “Good boy.
You’re learning.”

“What do you want to do?”

She nibbles her lip and then. “Blindfold me.”

My heart seizes.

Binding her powers is….

Gods, it’s dangerous.

“Iris,”

“Just until he leaves. I
can’t
See him,
Apollo. I can’t. Please.”

Which is how I find myself pressing a length of black satin
to her eyes and tying it,
tighter,
Apollo
she admonishes—at the back of her
skull. She heaves a sigh, a happy noise, and then sits in the sun chair.

Del hesitates a moment, her gaze swinging from me to the
bound Oracle, and I know that her disgust is mirrored in my own expression.
Still. This is her choice.

I won’t order her to do anything, any more than I will
forbid her.

“Bring him in,” she murmurs.

Delphi was shaking.

Shaking like leaves rattling down on the changing
winds that shake through the dying grasses and turn our sea stormy and cold.

Shaking, shaking, shaking, like a dying thing.

Her smile was brittle and cool, while her guests
are here. I lounged not far from her, but unassuming.

A deaf mute who could watch the sheep and tend her
fire and smile dumb reassurances at her brothers who stared prickly and
suspicious over the flames at her and me and back again.

She’s shaking, shaking, shaking.

Oh, but she was strong. When they smiled at her,
all suspicious and bright eyes, she gave it back. Happy and light, a wily smile
curving up her pretty lips and I had to bite mine to keep from laughing.

Gods, my girl was brilliant. She had been playing
them for hours, dancing around their questions with rambling answers that said
nothing, and food that was just the wrong side of disgusting, without being so
overly bad they could say something without insulting her. And any time their
gazes strayed toward me, she would bring up the herds, the dogs, the bandits on
the roads, her parents. Anything that would send the oldest—Dealph—busy and
ranting, while she arranged her face in an appropriate response and listened
with rapt attention.

It had been hours and the night was beginning to
wind in on us, and I could feel it on the wind, the whispers of dogs howling,
and feet running, the whistle of arrows on the wind and a silver coated laugh.

My sister was hunting and she was coming.

I eyed Del and her brothers, and wondered if their
blood would spill, or if my girl was bright enough to get them out before
Artemis could kill them.

It was an interesting consideration.

But she was shaking. Shaking and shaking and
shaking, her distractions becoming more and more obvious, her words making less
sense, and her eyes rolled to me, in fright now.

She was scared, and it hit me suddenly.

I shift, and uncurl from where I sit, crossing to
her in two strides, and her brothers are shouting. I can hear them. They don’t
register, really, but I
can
hear them.

“Del,” I murmur and the younger brother curses,
falling away from the fire.

I forget, I think, to mask my voice. Del is used to
it, used to the echoes and reverberations, used to the raw power.

Her very mortal, very ordinary brothers, are not.

“Make them leave,” she whispers, and her voice is
pleading. Begging for something I have the power to give.

But.

“Why?” I ask, and her eyes flick up to mine. Wide
and wide and frightened, gods so frightened.

“Shhh, sweet,” I murmur and flick a hand. Power
surges up and through me and I feel my cousin, the prick of his interest as he
turns to me, somewhere in the world, called by a thought and need.

“Pollo,
help
,”
she begs.

“Get away from her,” an angry voice snarls, and
then another snarl pitches over his, and the wind isn’t howling.